The Sandra TextsScene 2

Her legs folded beneath her, Katherine sits up in the
disheveled bed, naked, sheets pulled up by her hands to hide
modestly the fullness of her breasts, the paleness of her
pale skin. She holds her hands at her chin as she gazes
intently down at Joshua. He lies on his side, across the
full mattress, the corner of this same sheet pulled up over
his middle. Joshua's head is propped up on his bent arm as
Joshua marvels at Katherine's beauty, as Joshua marvels at
the fact he has made love to this stunning creature.

"But I promised...," she says.

And he listens to the sounds of her voice trickling
through her lips. And he sighs at how he has survived these
early days so well. Or, rather, it is me here in this
Brownsville hotel room sighing these many years later,
sighing for Joshua, for how he has weathered those cruel
vicissitudes of budding romance.

"I promised God I would make love again only when I was
in love."

And hanging between them as they gaze at one another is
the magic of that first date. That first date of Our Town
and a pizza bought by her. That first date of Joshua's
passion and commitment to his art made clear. That first
date that had forged them precipitously into an almost-couple.

"If that first date had not been so perfect, Joshua,"
Katherine would tell him again and again over the ensuing
five years, "We probably would not be together right now."

But it had.

Hanging between them, too, was that night out with her
friends, that first encounter of his with the attentions
other men showered upon her, her artless affable acceptance
of them, her approachability newly seen. And that first
jealously of his, so uncharacteristic of him. And that first
spat over his belligerent sullenness. And how he had "no right
to expect anything" from her. And how Katherine had hung
back then even so, to walk with Joshua, to wordlessly show her
concern, to mollify.

Hanging between them, too, was the party of one week
before, where, out of his presence, a male acquaintance of
Katherine's sneered at Joshua; impertinently pressed
Katherine to define what she saw in the long-hair, why she
bothered with him. How many times would she parry that
challenge in the coming five years! How many times would
they laugh together over it, collusively, as if playing a
trick on the world!

And the schism, the schism hung between them, that
schism of last night, of the gathering at her flat. They were
both fiercely independent. Because of their fierce
independence each refused to take that essential but
terrifying last step that turns romantic possibility into
romantic reality. Neither would give enough to trust the
other. Neither would surrender enough to make a first
nakedly vulnerable gesture of faith. Obdurate, they stood.
Counterpoised. Neither to relent. The tension of it--so
taut--drove Katherine away from that gathering at her own
flat. She retreated. But she retreated, of all places, to
Joshua's flat. Joshua, of course, refused to follow.
Adamant he stood in Katherine's living room. He would not
submit. Neither of them would submit. Both refused. It
might have meant their demise had a stranger not appeared
before Joshua as if from a mountain top. "She likes you or
you wouldn't be here," he counseled. "One of you has to let
down your guard or you're both going to lose." And seeing the
wisdom of this, immediately Joshua went to Katherine.
Immediately he went to her to disrobe her; to make love to
her for the first time; to wake then afterward, near her
child-like breathing; to behold her sitting up now, the coal
black tresses of her hair falling over her pale youthful
skin; to see the sheets close up over her breasts; to hear
her say, "But I promised God..."; and to look at her as he did
right now, having surmounted those cruel vicissitudes of the
early days; to say to her hopefully now, with an intensity
that made him who he was, "Maybe you have not broken your
promise."

And how desperately Joshua wants to tell Katherine of
his passion. How he wants to articulate the words that burn
so boldly in his eyes. But how he fears it, to say it, as if
the uttering might shatter the dream. So vibrant she seems
there, a vision. And somehow untouchable. Somehow
impossible. Porcelain.

Keeping himself covered, thus, Joshua eases now
from his recumbent position. He eases now through the silence
to lay his head upon Katherine's lap.